In a man who may additionally well turn out to be the island’s first Turkish Cypriot MEP, THEO PANAYIDES reveals a fiery, long-time supporter of a united Cyprus. How far he’ll develop depends on next Sunday’s vote. Looking again, it is never going to be smooth. It’s 9 am on a Monday, and Niyazi Kizilyurek is in a mad rush. “I have a marketing campaign,” he notes alternatively brusquely at the give up, after I wonder what’s next – and it’s real, he does, being many of the six Akel applicants (a tremendous case of a Greek Cypriot birthday celebration fielding a Turkish Cypriot candidate) status in next Sunday’s Euro-elections. At one point, he stops to take a smartphone call from Antenna, inviting him to appear on a TV panel in a couple of days. A few hours later, I see him on Sigma, taking part in yet another panel with two MEP candidates from Diko and Disy.
Our interview has been rather unfortunate. We were because of meet on Friday, but he becomes detained, leaving me to sit out of doors his workplace at the University of Cyprus perusing vintage Turkish guide books from the 80s (“In the arena gastronomy list, the Turkish Cuisine comes 1/3 following the French Cuisine and the Chinese Cuisine,” says the phase on ‘Dining,’ list “grilled bastard-mackerel” a few of the neighborhood cuisine), so we rescheduled for Monday morning.
He became very well-mannered on Friday, sending a person to explain that he was going for a walk past due and agreeing to pose for a photograph; however, he appears impatient these days, even bad-tempered. He pauses for another telephone call, and (though he declines to mention who he was speaking to, or what approximately) his tone sounds decidedly fed up. So I’m not amazed after I see him arguing heatedly on Sigma later, getting into it. Still, every other of these needless TV skirmishes – in this example angering Katerina Christofidou of Diko by allegedly “equating” Greece and Turkey – that function as clickbait for TV-channel websites and allow politicians to preen in public.
He unlocks the door of his workplace, panting slightly from having walked up the 3 flights of stairs to the Department of Turkish Studies. He looks suited for his age, a shaven-headed 60-year-old with stern, owlish features. He sits in a chair beside the desk, restlessly raring to begin – however doesn’t take off his shades, a signal of a person who’s now not too invested in the assembly and doesn’t plan to linger very long anyway. His English is excellent (he speaks five languages, including French and German), but now not, I suspect, quite as fluent as his Greek, let alone his native Turkish.
Looking returned, there are numerous reasons why it was never going to be smooth – but another reason is that Niyazi (at least in public) is a risky man in the first-class of instances, recognized for being fiery and combative. Is it truthful to mention he has that recognition? “Maybe, sure,” he allows. “Because I, at a completely younger age, commenced wondering and writing. I suggest I published my first book 35 years in the past. Because I changed into tough Greek and Turkish nationalism, and of course, which means a fight” – he says the phrase in the French way, with a silent ‘to – ‘with the aid of itself. So it’s been very tough. I have been attacked by the regime of [Rauf] Denktash for a few years. I had difficulties with Greek Cypriot nationalism after I came to university. So I discover myself within the center of a fight in both ways.”
Does he ever have trouble while he crosses to the occupied regions?
“We should differentiate epochs,” he points out. “I imply, till 2003-04, it became very difficult, my life. First of all, I am no longer allowed to cross the Line and notify my family. Second, I became compelled to fly always from Larnaca to Athens, then Istanbul, and North Cyprus.” “Because of what? Passport problems?” I think it is an alternative lame element to ask – however, I don’t recognize the specifics, and I’m looking to spark off him extra than something: Niyazi chuckles, a scathing laugh mixed with a snort. “No, it changed into a political obstacle. It was Denktash’s regime punishing me for no longer crossing the Line! What do you mean by ‘passport issues’?” He shakes his head disbelievingly: “You have to Google a piece before we speak, eh?”
He’s right, on the path – though sincerely I did Google ‘a piece’. I did what I normally do, I test out the overall contours of a subject’s lifestyles and permit them to fill in the rest (that way, I can be curious after speaking approximately them). Sometimes, of course, it’s a rush job, and I gather all the solutions earlier – but he confident me we’d have time to speak, as a minimum, on Friday. Instead, we keep, increasingly awkwardly, Niyazi getting antsy and sad, and me seeking to elicit facts without seeming ignorant.
The fundamentals can indeed be found on Google. Born in 1959 in the village of Potamia, to a farming circle of relatives, he moved in 1964 to the enclave of Louroujina – lots of Turkish Cypriots fled to ghettos after the violence of 1963 – where he remained for about seven years, basically cut off from the Greek Cypriot aspect. Studied at the University of Bremen, all of the way to a Ph.D. (his thesis become of course on the Cyprus hassle) – though, even earlier than completing his Doctorate in 1990, he became writing books and being “very active within the peace movement, I was always helping the idea of a united Cyprus.
I got here to the Greek Cypriot aspect in 1988 and lectured on ‘Oliki Kypros’ (‘Cyprus as a whole). He joined the faculty at the University in 1995 and has been there ever considering, now a complete Professor and the author of some two dozen books. Tell me something, I ask, thinking back to his time in the enclave. When did you become aware of a Turkish Cypriot identity as something separate, I., over and above the Cypriot one? Niyazi looks pained. “Well, there has been no ‘Cypriot’ identity amongst Turkish Cypriots anyway. The first identity is the Muslim one, and from the Muslim community of Cyprus, we advanced into Turkish Cypriots and introduced Turkish nationalism… But I’m sorry to do this interview with you.”
